Interior design isn’t easy—even for professionals. So, as a homeowner, you’ve got a bit of a challenge on your hands if you want to upgrade your home and make the interior design perfect. From the living room to the bedrooms, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

Here’s the good news, though: this guide has got your back. Read on for eight excellent (and professional) interior design tips specifically for homeowners. Whether you live in a modest two-bedroom home or a large mansion in the countryside, you’ll definitely find them to be useful—even more so if you’re a first-time homeowner.

With that said, grab a notepad and pen. Then, when you’re ready, dive right into the tips.

1. Use home design software

Speaking of a notepad and pen, you might want to ditch them in 2022. These days, it’s all about using home design software that will enable you to create the perfect blueprint to match your interior design vision.

With home design software, there’s plenty of room for creativity; whether you’re using a tablet (such as an iPad) or a PC. Within a matter of hours, you can make 3D designs that even the professionals would be impressed by.

Over time, as you become more experienced with the software, you’ll be able to create blueprints more frequently whenever you decide to take on another challenge inside your home. In fact, you might even be able to start your own interior design business—but let’s not get carried away for now!

2. Set a budget

Next, you need to set a realistic budget for your project. If you don’t set a budget ahead of time, this can lead to all sorts of problems, from reckless spending to the complete derailing of your interior design efforts.

Once you have a budget set, you can spend responsibly and stay on track, which is the most important point to keep in mind.

3. Create a “mood board”

If you have a décor-free wall in your house, you should use it as a mood board. On your mood board, you can use Blu Tack to attach photos, fabrics, wallpapers, cut-outs from magazines, and various other samples that will serve to inspire and drive your creativity.

After a couple of weeks, your mood board will be complete and you’ll have a clear and concise vision of the aesthetic and style that you want to progress with for the interior of your home.

4. Choose “smart lights”

In case you don’t know already, smart lights are LED light bulbs that can be controlled through the internet and via Bluetooth.

What this means is that you can use your smartphones, tablets, and PCs to change the color and tone of any of the smart lights sprinkled throughout your home.

For example, when the evening time arrives and it goes dark outside, you’ll be able to grab your smartphone and swipe your finger to whatever color you want the living room light to be. Not too bad, right?

Lighting is key when it comes to any interior design. Without good lighting, there’s no soul or heart behind it all!

5. Stick with a consistent color palette

A consistent color palette is key to any modern home. If you have too many color changes from room to room (or wall to wall), then it’s going to ruin the aesthetic and make it difficult for you to give your home’s interior a nice visual appeal.

In 2022, some colors are proving to be more popular than others with homeowners (particularly pastel colors). Here are just a handful of examples:

Pale green

Stone blue

Nature brown

Buttercream

If you can stick with one (or two) throughout your household, then you’re going to make your life a lot easier!

6. Rearrange the furniture

When it comes to a brand-new interior design, you don’t need to splash out huge amounts of money on furniture. Instead, you can often stick with what you currently have—the trick is to rearrange your furniture in order to make it feel and look new.

For example, let’s think about your living room. If you have two or more sofas that have been in the same position for multiple years, now is a good time to switch them around. By doing this, you can add a new personality to your living room whilst also (potentially) freeing up some much-needed space. When you think about it, what’s not to love?

7. Add some relaxed seating

Relaxed seating is perfect for several rooms within your property, such as the living room and games room (if you have one).

You get the best of both worlds with relaxed seating:

Extra comfort

Extra visual appeal

Relaxed sofas and chairs are going to become increasingly popular in homes throughout the rest of the decade; largely due to the fact that most members of the household now enjoy slouching out on their tech devices, from smartphones to tablets. Traditional sofas and chairs simply don’t offer the same comfortability and appeal as relaxed seating.

8. Avoid an all-white aesthetic 

For the past five or six years, all-white has been a huge trend in interior home design. This trend was first started by ultra-rich celebrities (such as The Kardashians) and subsequently trickled down to normal, everyday homeowners with a little extra money to spend.

As nice as the all-white approach was, it’s now reaching the end of its sell-by date. In replacement of it, we’re seeing a return to natural colors (such as the ones mentioned above) and vintage décor.

Avoiding the all-white aesthetic is especially important in family homes with young children, as it simply doesn’t convey the warmth and coziness needed for a modern family home!

Summary

You’ve now reached the end of this interior design guide for homeowners.

Hopefully, the tips above will be useful for you moving forward—no matter the size or scale of the project you undertake.

From using interior design software to finding a consistent color pallet, there are lots of boxes you need to tick. If you do this successfully, you’ll get everything right.